In the months after Ignite, we have released many of the capabilities described below. This post has been updated with the latest information, including links to learn more.
Since we released it over two years ago, Power BI has redefined what is possible with a truly modern BI tool. Delivered as a cloud service that anyone can sign up for and experience in minutes, it has made our ambitions of delivering BI to everyone a reality.
Power BI has quickly become the platform of choice for enterprises that want to establish a “data culture” to run their organizations on data-driven decisions. This week at Microsoft Ignite we will showcase how organizations from across the globe have used Power BI to get the most of their data. We are also really excited to announce a wealth of new features and capabilities that will help enterprises to achieve even more with their data. It’s going to be a great fall season!
Enterprise-grade scalability and performance with Power BI Premium
With a capacity-based pricing model, coupled with dedicated hardware, Power BI Premium is the right choice for a variety of critical analytics workloads in the enterprise. Businesses around the world are continuing to experience the impact of delivering intelligence to users throughout the organization with Power BI Premium, including many that have adopted the offering since its general availability in June – for example:
ASOS is a UK-based online retailer, whose mission is to become the world’s number one fashion destination for 20-somethings. Josie Williams, Data Services Architect at ASOS, said, “As we grow, Power BI apps together with Premium capacity provide scalable operational reporting, helping us to maintain a best-in-class Customer Care function.”
Slalom is a purpose-driven consulting firm with 25 locations across the U.S., U.K., and Canada helping companies build for the future. Mike Heffernan, CFO, says, “In addition to a highly efficient licensing model, Power BI Premium has empowered Slalom to share business insights across our core platforms with a broad global audience, taking Slalom one step closer to realizing a vision of BI for everyone.”
Since launch, we’ve been working on major new capabilities for Power BI Premium, geared towards further realizing our vision of enabling truly massive deployments and demanding workloads in cost-effective fashion.
- One-click scale-up [available now] of Premium capacities, meaning that organizations can easily increase the resources brought to bear on their critical data, without the need to move content around or set up new capacities.
- Larger Premium capacity nodes [in development] featuring the new P4 and P5 SKUs, which give organizations even more room to grow as they scale their data infrastructure to new heights
- Support for large models [available now – learn more] in Premium, allowing organizations to leverage dedicated capacity to host datasets 10x larger than what was previously possible
- Power BI Premium available for US government and US Department of Defense users [available now], building on Power BI Pro’s availability announced earlier this year. Visit the Azure Government Cloud blog for more information.
Enterprise-scale distribution and compliance features for Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium
Additionally, we’ll be building on existing distribution and compliance features to help you keep tabs on your enterprise data and meet security, governance and regulatory requirements.
- External distribution of Power BI apps [available now – learn more] to suppliers, customers, or business partners to improve decision making across the value chain. Built on Azure Active Directory, external users don’t need to remember extra passwords and can sign on using their own organization’s security credentials.
- Push Power BI apps to end users automatically [coming soon] so that everyone in your organization can find the reports and dashboards they need, on their first day, and across all their devices. Governance controls are built in to ensure data quality and control standards are met.
- In-region auditing [coming soon] with auditing data generated by Power BI now stored in the same region as your Power BI tenant. Along with our global data center footprint and industry-leading national cloud strategy, Power BI uniquely enables you to meet your organization’s compliance requirements.
- Data lineage tools [coming soon] to understand the downstream use of sensitive data sources to plan changes, manage compliance, or understand performance and load. The data lineage solution template is fully extensible to your needs and can be integrated as part of your organization’s monitoring or adoption reporting.
Enterprise-wide deployment of Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop is the most powerful tool in the market for shaping data into rich, interactive reports. In hundreds of thousands of organizations, Power BI Desktop has helped kindle a powerful data culture by empowering end users to make the most of their data.
Above: Power BI Desktop can now be widely deployed through the Windows Store
We want to help supercharge this movement, and to empower millions more to achieve the same. To that end, we are excited to announce that Power BI Desktop will now also be available in the Windows Store. Enterprises will now be able to easily push the latest version of Power BI Desktop to their end users, ensuring access to the latest and greatest features. And, as we continue to improve Power BI Desktop, any existing installations will automatically be updated, without the need for end user Windows administrator rights. It’s never been so easy to empower your entire organization with cutting-edge data analytics capabilities. Learn more in the Windows Store
Enterprise-ready partner network
Power BI works with a rich network of partners to create solutions tailored to every need. Today, we are excited to announce exciting updates to our partner ecosystem.
Above: new Plus subscription for ArcGIS in Power BI
Last June, in collaboration with Esri, a global leader in Geospatial Information Systems, we announced the general availability of ArcGIS Maps for Power BI. The integration of Power BI with ArcGIS has allowed us to redefine how business users experience their data using maps and advanced GIS techniques previously available only in specialized tooling. We are excited to announce that the new Plus subscription for ArcGIS Maps for Power BI will enable users to further advance that experience. The Plus subscription allows users to access more maps, global demographics, verified ready-to-use data, and plot even more locations on their maps for compelling visualizations that give perspective and impact decisions. Esri will make this new subscription available later in Q4. Learn more
Powerful ISV ecosystem with Power BI Embedded in Azure
Power BI empowers ISVs looking to embed rich data visualization and analysis into their custom-built applications and solutions. Today, we are excited to announce that new Power BI Embedded SKUs will be available in Azure beginning Oct. 1. These capacity-based SKUs simplify how ISVs and developers use Power BI capabilities, helping them quickly add stunning visuals, reports and dashboards into their apps. Read more here
We look forward to seeing you in Orlando. Stop by our booth and attend our sessions. If you’re unable to attend, be sure to watch online.
- BI in the age of artificial intelligence – an inside look at the future of data analytics. Explore how customers across multiple industries are harnessing AI and new classes of BI experiences with profound effects
- Enterprise BI deployments and governance with the Microsoft Power BI service – a scenario-based deep dive of how enterprises are successfully deploying and governing Power BI at scale
- Dive into effective report authoring using Power BI Desktop – join us for a demo-filled exploration of best practices for report authoring, data preparation and data modeling with Power BI desktop
See you in person or online!